Lancaster’s Melican in Haiti to Be Like Brit

When Mark Melican headed south in August, he was headed to warm weather, but not relaxing beaches.

Instead, he went to Haiti to work on the Be Like Brit orphanage being built in Grand Goave, Haiti, located outside Port-au-Prince.

The project, driven by Len and Cherylann Gengel, continues the mission work of their daughter, Britney, who was killed when the devastating earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010.

Among the many buildings destroyed was the hotel when Britney and others from her Lynn University group perished. Over 230,000 people died in the earthquake and its aftermath, leaving an estimated 300,000 orphans fighting for survival in a country where clean water, food, and shelter were virtually wiped out.

Melican, a Lancaster resident whose business focuses on specialized civil construction, such as excavating and site work, said he had followed the story about Britney.

“It was a heart-wrenching thing to see,” Melican said. He sent e-mails to Gengel “offering any help I could.”

Last July, Melican said, he and his wife, Lindsay, suffered a personal tragedy which, while he declined to talk about it, did spur him to action.

“Three weeks later, I was on a plane to Haiti,” he said.

He said it helped him heal.

“I’ve always had an odd way of healing,” he added.

The trip forced him to “Get out of my comfort zone.”

It was his effort to “try to help somebody who really needs it,” he said. “It makes you realize how good have it here in the US.”

It also was a start of some friendships.

“Some of the people I traveled with became lifelong friends,” Melican said.

“He left a very large impact,” Len Gengel said of Melican’s work on the project. “He came in and started work the hour he got there.”

Gengel had a septic system designed by someone to Massachusetts standards, Melican said, something he could build.

“I handed him the plans on the plane. He got it down and did a fabulous job, working his butt off,” Gengel said.

The orphanage’s 75,000-gallon septic tank and six septic pits will improve sanitation; Melican worked on the first two of the 14-foot-deep, 8x8 pits

“It was an amazing feat,” Gengel said. “For the record,” he added, “there is no septic system in Haiti.”

“The amount of work done in a day is impressive by any standard,” Melican said, acknowledging the Haitian workers, who were using relatively primitive tools.

For Melican, it was more than the project, involving, “Getting up enough courage to get down there and do it.”

“The Haitian people, you can’t fathom the poverty,” Gengel said of the country he has visited 35 times in 22 months while getting the orphanage built.

That was something Melican experienced firsthand.

“There is no sanitation whatsoever,” Melican said. “I was very excited to build that for him.”

The heat was intense.

But more than that, it was “the sights, the smells,” he said. “It’s a totally different environment. I’ve been all over the world, and Haiti is as rough as it gets. It’s as close to a war zone as I can imagine.”

He summed it up: “A feeling of chaos.”

Missing were “Things we take for granted, like clean water,” he said. “I lived off power bars for a week.”

He saw the lingering effects of the earthquake in a tent city, “torn, tattered shanties as far as you can see. Literally, it was all rubble. Everything that was concrete was on the ground.

“You just can’t understand until you’ve put the boots on the ground and seen it with your own eyes.”

Melican used his vacation for the trip, but “it was as far from anything anyone would want to take as a vacation.”

The orphanage will house 66 children in a 20,000-square-foot building built to California earthquake code.

Shaped like a “B” for Britney, it will be home to 33 boys and 33 girls, the numbers representing the 33 days before Britney’s body was recovered.

“It’s all about people and volunteers helping Haiti,” Gengel said. “They’re not just coming in and working. They are giving the people of Haiti hope: hope for their children, hope for food for the table.”

“They have a tenacious spirit,” Gengel said.

The project continues his daughter’s work.

“My daughter’s touch resonates with most everyone who had gone,” Gengel said and referred to Britney’s last text message before the earthquake: “They love us so much and everyone is so happy. They love what they have and they work so hard to get nowhere, yet they are all so appreciative. I want to move here and start an orphanage myself.”

“I feel like I saw a hundred miracles down there,” Melican said. Leading the charge was Gengel.

“His compassion is enough to inspire anybody,” Melican said of Gengel.

While in Haiti, Melican stayed in a 10-foot by 10-foot hut with homemade bunkbeds surrounded by barbed wire, needed because of dangerous elements in the countryside.

Despite the situation, “Some of the kids were just incredible.”

Melican, with his own 22-month old son, Mark, said he related to the children, many of whom he saw running around without supervision, living in rags.

In the villages, there is little cash. People trade for things, Melican said. One farmer walked overnight with firewood to trade for food.

There is a tremendous sense of pride in the workers, Melican said. With paid workers at the project, Be Like Brit actually helps feed many families.

“We employ 75 to 100 people, feeding 750 to 1,000 people each week,” Gengel said of the ripple effect.

“We know we’ve created an impact,” Gengel added.

“I’m a simple guy,” Melican said. To anyone interested, he said he recommends, “Step out of your comfort zone. Do something that scares the heck out of you. You just might find yourself.

“I’ve always thrived on pressure and stress,” he said. “You don’t know you have the courage to do something until you do it.”

“One of the first things Mark did was take his pair of work gloves with the CAT logo, and he gave them to Serge, a Haitian worker. They got done what they needed to do,” Gengel said.

“On personal note, I’m touched and honored that this man raised money and paid for his ticket to Haiti and worked for the children of Haiti,” Gengel said of Melican’s efforts.

“It was a life-changing event for me,” Melican said

The Be Like Brit effort continues, with the orphanage on track to be completed soon. More information and opportunities to donate or volunteer can be found on the organization’s website and Facebook page.

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